


After It All Went Sideways

by KnyleBorealis



Category: Red vs. Blue, Red vs. Blue Zero, RvB Zero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnyleBorealis/pseuds/KnyleBorealis
Summary: Set after the events of Sideways (S1E5 of RvB Zero).Tucker's day has taken a characteristic turn for the worse. A bunch of idiots in colorful armor showed up, (former) Freelancer in the lead, to save him from some crazy, overpowered megalomaniac after the Chosen One's sword. And then the moody one with the knife turned traitor and stabbed him. And Tucker, for his part, is really not surprised. He's noticing some patterns in his life, you might say. But he can reflect on that later, because wow, does it suck when people nearly manage to kill you. Almost as much as it sucks when they nearly kill your friends...
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	After It All Went Sideways

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched RvB zero start to present (currently, the latest episode is S1E5: Sideways). Wash is hurt, and now Tucker is, too. My boys, injured, introduced to a new Big Bad, and potentially reunited at long last? How could I not write a fic?
> 
> This takes place after the events of Sideways, starting immediately after the attack on Tucker. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I wrote this in 3 hours and did not edit. Living dangerously, I am.
> 
> Rating: Teen and Up, for some very coarse language. But this is RvB, my dudes. If you're here and swearing shocks you, I welcome you to a fandom that you have clearly never experienced before. We have the best snacks.
> 
> ~ Enjoy! ~

The sunlight out on the landing pad was a harsh call back to consciousness. In the brief moment it took his HUD to adjust to the new scenery, Tucker squinted weakly at a sea of sickening, enriched color. Status warnings flared up in text he couldn’t read, and colors swam past his visor in a nauseating rush.

Then the pain hit, and his eyes slammed shut. Tucker clenched up, jaw clamping down on a scream, body coiling in agony around the glowing, sizzling blade in his middle. He didn’t have any room left to think, but he knew he was up in the air, knew there was a hostile under him, spearing him on the blade. Didn’t matter; he couldn’t move, no matter how many instincts were screaming at him to lash out. His body felt disconnected.

There were voices he couldn’t understand, and then the world lurched. The ground rushed up to meet him as the blade left his side; his head hit the tarmac before fresh pain could hit. Blinding light flickered to blackness.

~

Voices again, and far too many. As soon as feeling filtered back into his limbs, Tucker thrashed, knocking against rails and limbs. Pain stole his breath away even before the people around him reacted, though, locking him up like 50,000 volts straight to the nipples. With a cry, Tucker arched and then crumpled, trying to curl up around the fireball melting through his side.

There were hands on him by then, pulling him back, pressing him flat. The voices were urgent but calm, and as the rest of his senses came online, he gathered enough from the scents and sensations to recognize a gurney and doctors. His armor was still on. The relief was immediate, overpowering the panic. Slower than he’d revved up, Tucker quieted, letting himself lie back on the stiff mattress and starting to flinch away from the pain. Adrenaline fading, he took a careful breath and forced his eyes open, searching the blurry faces leaning over him.

“Wha’ happened?”

_“He moved too fast; I need a fresh bandage.”_

They were ignoring him. He thought about raising his hand, but that seemed too exhausting. “H-hey!”

“ _Are we there yet? Get this bird moving, Ensign! Have we received confirmation from the outpost?”_

_“Yes sir! Medical staff will we waiting in the hangar, sir!”_

_“Doctor, what’s the status on—”_

_“Respectfully, Lieutenant? Get the hell out of my light. You have to let me and my crew work!”_

_“Sir, the outpost is reporting concerns about housing two high-risk targets in one facility—”_

“Hello!” Tucker tried to shout into the chaos. Wheezing coughs cut him off, lighting up his insides in a fiery burst of consequences. He doubled over again and was quickly straightened out by half a dozen hands. He couldn’t do much more than groan, after that.

_“No good. He’s really bleeding now. I need him locked down.”_

_“Vitals are dropping.”_

_“Put him under!”_

They must’ve used the heavy shit on him; it was lights out the moment the needle went in.

~

He was ready, the next time, swimming into awareness with some notion of what he’d wake up to. Beeping and humming machines, muted, urgent voices, scents of cleaning chemicals and his own ferrous blood. Infirmary. Which meant a long, boring recuperation. Great. Military infirmary. Which meant a bunch of stupid rules and stupid people caring too much about them. _Terrific_.

He could hear some bossy idiot going at it already. The words weren’t clear, but the voices were familiar enough. CO and underling, scheming some shitty plan.

_“—don’t think it’s a wise use of our assets to keep them both here. This base isn’t outfitted to hold off another attack from people like…like that.”_

_“Well, it will be, when I’m done with it!”_

_“Regardless, sir, keeping them together puts them at a much greater risk—Why are you laughing?”_

_“Because you’re dead wrong, corporal. We’re not putting our eggs in one basket; we’re tucking a prize heifer in next to a rabid pit bull. That’s extra protection that I don’t need to arrange.”_

_“…Sir, the man is in a coma.”_

_“He’s a guard dog, corporal, and he’ll do his job better than anyone under orders. That’s what friends are for, ain’t it?”_

_“Sacrificing themselves?”_

_“For the greater good! That pink traitor might have the power sword, but she can’t use it yet! We need Captain Tucker alive, corporal. No matter what it takes.”_

Well, of all the bullshit a CO could say, Tucker could get on board with the last two sentences he’d heard. The words were practically clear by the end of the exchange, and he had a sinking feeling his ears would leave his nerve endings to the light. At least it didn’t hurt just yet. Everything was foggy and thick when he first woke up, so he figured the drugs were still in his system. They’d burn off too soon. His metabolism kicked into high gear after Junior was born. Along with a lot of other things. Bow chicka bow—ow.

Ow, ow, owwww…

“Hnghhhh,” Tucker managed, moaning his way into alertness.

Opening his eyes, he grimaced at the cold air touching his face and tensed up, glancing down to see only Kevlar and bare skin where his armor should be. Blue light was shimmering in the Sangheili tattoos covering his torso, concentrating thickly in the ink around the dull, stinging pain in his abdomen. They lit up the people leaning over him from below, but they weren’t as bright as the infirmary’s overhead lighting. The surgical lamp hurt his eyes. Which was stupid, because there was no way he should be able to feel his _eyes_ hurting on top of everything else making him squirm.

…The dull part was wearing off. The stinging wasn’t. Breathing very carefully, Tucker squinted through the glaring light and caught the first set of eyes he could amongst the medical crew around him. They widened over the surgical mask.

_“He’s awake!”_

A series of gasps and expletives preceded his next dose of anesthesia. Tucker happily faded to black.

~

Clarity came with a brief, stark memory of a glowing blue knife sliding between his ribs, mirroring the old injury he’d gotten on Chorus: terrible moments overlain far too neatly in his head. A blast of pain and terror propelled him up with a gasp, eyes flying open as he snapped upright in bed. Worst decision he’d made in a while: his side lit up in agony, and he collapsed back with a gurgle, writhing.

“God dammit. He did it again.”

“Captain Tucker.” A very stern, steely-eyed woman leaned over him, mustering just the right look to snap a soldier to attention. Clearly a military doctor. “Unless you want me to have you strapped down, you need to lie still.”

Breathing raggedly, Tucker complied, eyes darting around the space, turning his head as little as possible to see past the rails on his bed. The infirmary stretched off to the right, taken up mostly by a large glass tube, positioned lengthwise in the room and perpendicular to Tucker. He couldn’t see who was inside, but he thought he caught a glimpse of black armor before the doctor stepped in his way. His heart started to beat a little faster, betrayed by the beeping of a machine beside him. Backing up the sentiment, his scalp prickled uncomfortably under his dreds, tingles following the glowing blue lines under his hair.

“What happened?” he demanded, ignoring everything but the doctor. He couldn’t speak above a whisper at first, but she probably knew all the questions he’d ask by heart.

“You were attacked while mentoring at an AoD base. Shatter Squad intervened on your behalf, but I understand there was some sort of betrayal,” she reported matter-of-factly, keen on his monitors. “Do you remember?”

He waited a moment, letting the blurry images and snatches of sound filter in, and slowly nodded. “Yeah, that pink bitch jumped me in the ship. They catch her? Where’s Carolina?”

The doctor just blinked at him and shrugged. “On the hunt, I gather. Not my concern. How’s your pain?”

“I just got stabbed, and alien tech won’t let painkillers work on me. How do you think?” he snapped, pushing on in the same breath, “Where’s my armor? Is it safe?” At her nod, he continued, “They got my sword, didn’t they? Fuckin’ knife people. They always pull the sneakiest shit. You know, if it wasn’t for Wash, I think I’d just start shooting them as soon as— _holy FUCK that’s Wash isn’t it?_ ”

“Captain Tucker!” The doctor yelped, hands flying up beseechingly as Tucker lunged out of bed. Injury forgotten, he craned his neck to see into the healing capsule.

Tucker didn’t hear her. The head and shoulders of the tube's occupant were blocked by the machinery at the closest end of the tube, but the body and legs were enough. He knew that armor and the physique underneath like the back of his hand. Black plating, yellow highlights. “Oh no. Hell no. What happened?”

He leapt to his feet and buckled immediately, caught like a kitten in the doctor’s arms as she and an orderly wrestled him back towards the mattress. Pain nearly blacked him out; they had him back in bed by the time he’d blinked the gray edges and whirling white spots away. His monitors were screeching. The doctor looked about ready to strangle him.

Gasping shallowly for air, Tucker rasped, “What’s wrong with him? How bad is it?”

The doctor hesitated. “There was an attack…”

The door slid open, and a uniformed officer strode in. He waved commandingly at the medical staff, and all but the doctor reluctantly filed out. “Major Washington sustained severe injuries during an escort mission, Captain Tucker.”

“What happened? Who the hell are you?” Glaring on instinct, Tucker sat up a little straighter, focusing on the new arrival. “No, actually, I don’t care. Who got him?”

“The assailants are currently unknown,” the officer, a lieutenant by his bars, replied smoothly.

Tucker didn’t believe that for a goddamn second. He scowled fiercely and sat up, forcing himself not to show the pain. He stiffened when the doctor moved closer, but it was to stand at his shoulder, not to stop him. She didn’t like the new guy, either. Tucker’s opinion of her marched up a few notches. “Then what was the mission? Who was with him? Carolina?”

The officer was stone-faced. “You’re not cleared for any further information.” 

“Man, I knew you would fucking say that.” Sighing, Tucker angrily pushed his dreds out of his face and flinched before he could cover it. Laying a careful hand over the stark white patch on his blue-lined midsection, he grunted, “He said they were still working together. Carolina’s going after ’em, then. I hope she fucks ’em up. It was the same fuckers that got me, wasn’t it? This kind of shit always stacks.”

“Captain,” the lieutenant cut in, sounding aggrieved. “That’s classified intel.”

“Yeah, well, to hell with that!” Tucker bit out through gritted teeth. “I helped _save the universe_ ; nothing’s classified for me!”

“That’s not how it works,” he rumbled, brows drawing together.

“Then I’m ordering it declassified!”

“You retired. You don’t even have a valid rank anymore.”

“Oh yeah? Where does interracial, intergalactic ambassador and Chosen One fall in the ranking systems?” Tucker spat, caught between equal urges to strangle the fucker and allow himself to implode into a whimpering ball of broken space marine. “Above fucking lieutenant, maybe?”

“Gentlemen,” the doctor interrupted, stepping between them with an expression that suggested she didn’t think either of them fit the term. “I have more than enough tranquilizers on hand to end this conversation if I don’t like how it goes in the next two minutes.”

The lieutenant glowered, lips thinning to almost nothing, and Tucker took a moment to breathe through the burn. Sensing that maybe she’d have more sway than he’d originally given her credit for, Tucker muttered to her, “I’m balls deep in this fuckery now. I gotta know what’s going on.”

Acknowledging that, she turned from him to the lieutenant, eyebrows raised expectantly, and he schooled his expression into something contrite-looking. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t tell you more. Now, I have to—”

“More? You’ve told me fuck-all in the first place!” Tucker burst out, boiling over again. His injury and the doctor’s glare quickly set him back on his heels, but he let his glare stay in full effect, hissing, “I’m consulting with the military. I’m an alien ambassador. I’m _still in the game_. I should have been _told_ shit was going _down_ , mother _fucker_.”

Which was pretty goddamn diplomatic, given what he’d have done in his younger days, but the lieutenant didn’t look like he appreciated Tucker’s restraint. He drew himself up, outburst brewing in his dark eyes, and the doctor threw her hands up in both their faces.

“This is over,” she tried to say, but neither man was willing to back off.

“Sir, I have to debrief you before you—”

“Why the hell wasn’t I told?” Tucker half-shouted, pointing angrily at the glass capsule on the other side of the room. “Wash is half-dead in a fucking tube, and _nobody tells me?_ ” He stiffened, shaky memories sifting into his brain. “Wait. Wait a minute, you cocksucking fuckwad, did you call him a _rabid dog?_ Is he who you were talking about? Was that what you meant? Huh?”

“ _OUT_.”

The doctor fully turned her back to Tucker, who was in the middle of climbing out of bed to cut a bitch, and advanced on the lieutenant, menacing enough that he quickly retreated before her. Or maybe he took exception to Tucker looming up behind her, a head taller than each of them, Sangheili designs shining brilliantly all over his lean body, murder in his glowing blue eyes. Regardless, she marched the officer out the door, into the infirmary annex, and out of sight. As soon as the doors slid shut behind them, Tucker let his anger drop back behind what actually mattered. Wash.

When the doctor came back in, alone, he was at the head of Wash’s healing unit, one hand splayed wide over the glass. Energy hummed under his skin, concentrating around the knife wound, mostly, and keeping him upright in some weird manifestation of Chosen One mojo. He’d never figured out how it worked. It did what he needed it too, though. Let him stay standing by Wash, staring mutely down at his friend’s shattered visor.

He knew the doctor was waiting back at his bed. Shifting his fingers to block most of the holes and cracks in Wash’s helm, he murmured quietly, “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

“People fuck up,” she stated, not exactly apologetically, but sympathetic at least. In a softer tone, she assured him, “We’ve got him stable. We could take him out of the armor, but Carolina warned us not to do that, if we could help it.” Tucker chuckled humorlessly, nodding in agreement. “He’s…well. He’s gotten through worse than this before, I understand.”

“Yeah,” Tucker muttered, hoarse.

When it came to epic fucking sagas of emotional bullshit, Wash had half the universe beat, and Church had the other. Past the melodramatic one-liners once in a while, though, the guy seemed to let it roll off him like it was second nature. It usually made it easier for Tucker to convince himself that Wash was—or would be—fine. Tucker stared at the cables and wires running to and from his friend’s head. At the splints immobilizing his limbs, the holes in his armor, the gashes in his undersuit. Wash wasn’t shrugging anything off this time. Not yet, anyway.

“He always wakes up,” he told the doctor, and she let him have it, saying nothing. Tucker took a long, careful breath through his nose and realized the burst of power was fading. The pain would be back; he’d need to lay down. “What do I gotta do to get my bed over here, Doc?”

It sounded like she was smiling. “I stole the lieutenant’s data pad.”

“Huh?” Finally tearing his eyes away from Wash, he glanced back at her with a furrowed brow.

She waved the tablet at him. “Either you fill out these debrief forms, or I have to let him back in here to debrief you in person. Nobody wants that.”

“Lemme at ’im,” Tucker disagreed under his breath, but he half turned and reached out for the tablet, accepting it so she could operate the bed controls and drive it closer to Wash.

She positioned it right by Wash’s head, where Tucker could sit with the glass in reach, and leveled a hard, quelling stare at him. “Understand that I am buying your cooperation and best behavior by doing this. And that I will get both.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Almost smiling, he nodded and climbed laboriously back up onto the mattress, groaning. Pain was back. Pain was bad. Huffing, she helped him arrange himself and set the bed controls to prop him up more into a sitting position, swinging a table over for him to set the data pad on. The tablet’s background was some shitty Earth farm, but it reminded him of traveling, and he swore under his breath.

“Shit. My kid thinks I’ll be home the day after tomorrow. Can I tell him? Is he covered?”

“You’re a target of one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the galaxy, and the stakes are probably world annihilation at the hands of omnipotent alien technology,” the doctor reminded him drily, poking at a few monitors. “Your status and your location are about as Top Secret as it gets. I've been told that those closest to you will be guarded.” She waved imperiously at the tablet and the forms he was supposed to fill out, turning to walk towards the door. “I’m sorry, but for the foreseeable future, you can have no contact with people outside this ward. Least of all family.”

The door to the annex closed behind her, leaving Tucker alone with Wash and all the life-saving machines a secret research facility had to offer. Sighing, Tucker looked down at Wash. “Well, at least she got that wrong.”

Tucker glanced at the data pad, then back over at his friend, unnaturally still and strangely fragile in his cage of glass and metal. “Man, what did we get sucked into now? …You better wake the hell up and start getting us out of it.”

Wash didn’t respond, of course, and after a moment, Tucker sighed and pushed his dreds out of his face, starting to peruse the tablet’s contents. A network icon caught his eye. He raised an eyebrow, leaning more intently—and gingerly—over the screen. A few taps later, and a dialog box opened, cursor winking promisingly. Starting to smile, Tucker reached up into this thickly woven hair, gently worked out a thin, camouflaged drive, and plugged it into the data pad.

“Classified, huh? Bullshit.” The software on the drive immediately downloaded and started to sift through the tablet’s connected network, and Tucker fully grinned. “Simmons. What a nerd, huh?” He rapped his knuckles lightly on Wash’s tube. “Don’t worry, Wash. It’s gonna take a bigger fuckup than this to take us out of the game.” Grunting, he arranged himself a little more comfortably on the bed, then leant back with a smirk. “Man, I bet you thought you were done dealing with this sweet piece of ass.”

The program completed its first sweep, mapping a maze of folders and files out for Tucker to view. Snickering, he opened the first folder that caught his eye, SHATTERSQD, and settled in to learn about the latest batch of assholes out to save the free world. He knew Wash couldn’t hear him, but he was also pretty sure his friend would know he was around. Maybe he was just conditioned to having somebody nearby, always, to talk shit to.

“Dude, these guys look like assholes. Is this some redo of Project Freelancer? Because they kinda suck, like we did. But they’re totally try-hards. Like me, after you ruined me and made me a real space marine. Hey, is this a redo of _us_? Fuck yeah.”

It could have been his imagination, but he swore he heard one of Wash’s machines make a new beeping noise. Pausing, Tucker flipped open a personnel file and glanced at the contents. “Oh, fuck me. They’ve got an orange guy who drives things and handles the tech. It’s like a Griff-Simmons clone. Sickening. And where’s the badass with a sword, huh? One blue to, like, four reds? Bullshit. Carolina’s great, man, but you gotta heal up and get this shit sorted. Takes a fuckup to fix a fuckup, you know? You’re one of us.”

Another beep, and that time, it was unmistakably different. Swallowing, Tucker set the data pad down and drew his legs up, spinning to sit cross-legged facing Wash’s tube. Tentatively, he reached out and laid a hand on the glass, searching for any twitch, any shift, any sign.

“Wash? You in there, buddy? You hear me?”

Nothing extraordinary happened, but Tucker got the distinct sense that there was… _something_ different. And he’d learned to trust those quiet senses. Quieting, he leaned down and pressed his forehead into the glass, letting himself look past the broken visor, smiling softly at the lavender latticework of veins on the one eyelid he could see. For long moments, he watched the minute movements of the eye beneath, a veiled iris tracking movement side to side, seeing images that hadn’t been there minutes before. Dreaming.

“Come on, Wash, wake up. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Smiling, Tucker let himself relax for the first time in a long, long, _long_ time, embracing the sense of purpose settling into his bones. There was a familiar hum in his nerves: the call of urgency and action. He had a sword to recapture and a new crew of misfit jackasses to meet. Beneath the sickening worry and blazing anger, he realized that he was happy. Happier than he’d been in ages. Which that was flat-out crazy, but what the hell. He was a Blue, after all. Crazy hadn’t failed him yet.

“We’ve got work to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just saying, after all this, if they write Wash and Tucker out of this show, I'm finna start a riot. (Big potential for this to age poorly. *fear.jpeg* *crosses fingers*)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! I'd love to hear your thoughts, but more importantly, I'd love for you to have a great day! You're unique, you're important, and you have something beautiful to bring to the world. You do you, dear reader.
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3
> 
> ~Knyle B.


End file.
